Bull SAS (also known as Groupe Bull, Bull Information Systems, or simply Bull) is a French

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

headquartered Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top ...

Les Clayes-sous-Bois Les Clayes-sous-Bois () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the center. The Clayes-sous-Bois inhabitants are called "Clétiens" (possibl ...

, in the western suburbs of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. The company has also been known at various times as Bull General Electric, Honeywell Bull, CII Honeywell Bull, and Bull HN. Bull was founded in 1931, as H.W. Egli - Bull, to capitalize on the

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

technology patents of

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

engineer

Fredrik Rosing Bull Fredrik Rosing Bull (25 December 1882 – 7 June 1925) was an information technology pioneer, known for his work on improved punched card machines. Bull was born in Kristiania (Oslo, Norway). In 1907 he finished his studies in civil engineering a ...

(1882–1925). After a reorganization in 1933, with new owners coming in, the name was changed to Compagnie des Machines Bull (CMB). Bull has a worldwide presence in more than 100 countries and is particularly active in the defense, finance, health care, manufacturing, public, and telecommunication sectors.

History

Origins

On 31 July 1919, a Norwegian engineer named

filed a patent for a "combined sorter-recorder-tabulator of punch cards" machine that he had developed with financing from the Norwegian insurance company Storebrand. Storebrand integrated his device into its operations in 1921. The following year Bull sold his second machine to the Danish insurer Hafnia who had learned of the technology through an article in an insurance trade magazine. At the time of Bull's death of cancer in 1925 at the age of 43, a dozen of his machines had been sold to different companies throughout Europe. The commercial and technical development of the machines continued under the direction of Bull's childhood friend and long-time collaborator Reidar Knutsen along with his brother Kurt Andréas Knutsen. As the business grew several outside investors were brought in, leading to the incorporation of the company H.W. Egli Bull in 1931. In 1933, more investors joined and the company changed its name to Compagnie des Machines Bull, a name it would keep until 1964.

Growth

The company has undergone many takeovers and mergers since its formation. In particular, it has had various ownership relations with

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

, and

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

from the 1960s to the 1980s; and with

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

, Debeka, and France Télécom more recently. It acquired

Honeywell Information Systems Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance m ...

in the late 1980s, and later also had a share of

Zenith Data Systems Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) was a division of Zenith Electronics founded in 1979 after Zenith acquired the Heath Company, which had entered the personal computer market in 1977. Headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Zenith sold personal compu ...

and

Packard Bell Packard Bell is a Dutch-registered computer manufacturing brand and subsidiary of Acer. Originally an American radio set manufacturer, Packard Bell Corporation, it was founded by Herbert A. Bell and Leon S. Packard in 1933. In 1986, Israeli i ...

. Bull was nationalised in 1982 and was merged with most of the rest of the French computer industry. Groupe Bull bought Zenith Electronics in late December 1989. It kept Zenith Data Systems' headquarters and plants in Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. In 1994, the company was re-

privatised Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

. In August 2014, the French IT company

Atos Atos is a European multinational information technology (IT) service and consulting company headquartered in Bezons, France and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and ...

announced that it had acquired a controlling stake in Bull SA through a tender offer launched in May. Atos announced plans in October, 2014 to buy out or squeeze out the remaining share and bondholders. Bull launched the Hoox m2, the first integrally secured European smartphone, which in June 2014 was approved for use with data classified as 'Restricted Information' ('Diffusion Restreinte') by the

Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information The ''Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information'' (ANSSI; English: French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems) is a French service created on 7 July 2009 with responsibility for computer security.servers (

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

), Escala servers (

AIX Aix or AIX may refer to: Computing * AIX, a line of IBM computer operating systems *An Alternate Index, for a Virtual Storage Access Method Key Sequenced Data Set * Athens Internet Exchange, a European Internet exchange point Places Belgi ...

) and mainframes GCOS (design, manufacturing, distribution) * Data storage and backup systems, cloud computing infrastructure * Mobile/smart phones (Hoox)

Software and services

* Open source
Novaforge.org portal
* Information technology consulting and services, custom solutions development for clients * Systems integration * Human resource and social welfare management systems *

Managed services Managed services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions, ostensibly for the purpose of improved operations and reduced budgetary expenditures through the r ...

and

web hosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing we ...

* Support * Training

Information security

* Public key infrastructure * Electronic signature solutions * Encryption solutions (hardware and software) * Digital payment security * Identity, authentication and access management * High availability and disaster recovery * Systems and network monitoring

Corporate structure

Groupe Bull: * Bull SAS ** Agarik (

) ** HRBC (Human Resources systems) ** Bull PI (Engineering, research) ** Sirus (Social welfare management systems for the public sector) * Bull International SAS * Evidian (Security; identity and access management) * Serviware (

high performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a multi ...

) * Amesys SAS : ** Amesys Consulting (including Amesys International) ** Amesys RSS (including TRCOM) * Elexo (networking and telecommunications equipment)

Amesys controversy

Amesys, a Groupe Bull subsidiary specializing in defense and aerospace-related systems and software, became embroiled in controversy in 2011 when it was revealed that it had sold an internet monitoring system to the

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...

regime of Libya in 2007. The ''Eagle System'' was used by the Gaddafi regime to spy on citizens and foreign journalists. On 12 March 2013 Reporters Without Borders named Amesys as one of five " Corporate Enemies of the Internet" and "digital era mercenaries" for selling products that have been or are being used by governments to violate

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

and freedom of information. A judicial inquiry was opened by the French government in May 2012 following allegations of complicity in torture by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). In March 2012 Groupe Bull divested itself of the Eagle System, selling it for the sum of 4 million euros to Nexa Technologies, a company run by a former Amesys CEO.

References

External links

{{commons category

French companies established in 1931 Companies formerly listed on the Paris Bourse Computer hardware companies Electronics companies established in 1931 Electronics companies of France Mobile phone manufacturers Privately held companies of France Privatized companies of France Telecommunications companies of France French brands Software companies of France Computer surveillance Groupe Bull